Marco eventually decided to head down the tunnel, ‘It will be dangerous to crawl through the tunnel… but I’ll be fighting opponents I’m familiar with.’ Comforting himself as he crouched to enter the tunnel he thought, ‘If that last skeleton is any indication I’ll have plenty of warning before I approach one. Besides, doesn’t seem like many come through here…’

Crawling through the tunnel was tedious, and just a little terrifying. Every step Marco took echoed around him, ‘Alerting anything on the other end of this tunnel.’ he cursed. After crawling forward for what felt like an hour but was realistically probably five minutes Marco stumbled out into what he presumed was an open cave.

In the dark Marco fumbled around before tripping over something, sending a booming ‘thud’ through the cave. Turning to examine what exactly he fell over Marco’s hands came to rest on something cold, ‘Metal?’ he guessed as he felt around more. ‘Wood… Metal and wood. Of course- it’s a track for a minecart.’

Scrambling to his feet Marco tried to make out anything that he could in the darkness of the tunnel. ‘It would be a mistake to go anywhere in this darkness.’ Marco decided before making his way to the wall he came out of in search of the tunnel out. Feeling the wall for a minute allowed him to discover the exit, which he quickly used.

On his way out the tunnel Marco considered what he would have to do if he intended to commit to exploring the tunnel. ‘The most obvious problem is the lack of light… a flashlight wouldn’t do much good in a fight thought. Maybe some glow sticks? But once those fade I could end up stranded in the tunnels…’ Marco’s thoughts rambled on as he climbed out of the tunnel.

Gazing up at the large wooden doors Marco considered, ‘Or I could just head into the main dungeon.’ Shaking his head Marco decided, ‘No, it would be better to figure out a solution to the light problem.’ Turning around he then headed out the gate before pausing at the foot of the stairs, hesitating as he shuddered at his memories of SteelBreaker’s earlier actions, ‘Whatever. I’ll have to face him eventually anyway.’ he told himself as he began to climb.

As he approached the shop Marco did his best to muffle his steps, intending to sneak by SteelBreaker as fast as he could to avoid any awkward interaction that could unfold. However when his head reached the level where he could see the shop he was immediately greeted by SteelBreaker’s blurry eyes along with the distinct smell of alcohol.

“Marco!” SteelBreaker yelled as he stumbled over to him, “I’ve got somethin’ to say to ye lad.” With trepidation Marco attempted to rush by the inebriated dwarf, quickly stopped by a hand against the wall. “Listen here Marco.” Steelbreaker drunkenly slurred. “I’m sorry about earlier.”

Marco knitted his eyebrows before responding, “Look, its fine SteelBreaker. Let’s just forget anything ever happened.” The short man paused, a melancholy look taking his face as he said, “Don’t call me that blasted name anymore. My real name’s D’vardir.” with a look of expectation he prompted, “What’s yer real name Marco?”

With confused eyes Marco said, “Um, my real name is Marco…” causing D’vardir to gaze at him with amused eyes, “Wait. Ye gave yer real name to someone ye just met? Hahaha!” the dwarf roared as he put Marco in a headlock, “Kido you’ve got so much to learn. Wait, did ye think my name was SteelBreaker?! That me parents looked at me and said, ‘Oh, yes. This little lad looks like a SteelBreaker to me.’ Rubbish!” He drunkenly roared.

Marco blinked back his embarrassment when he realized how naive he’d been to assume that the dwarf’s real name would be SteelBreaker, ‘I can’t believe I actually thought that on some other planet parents would name their child SteelBreaker.’ Marco thought as he started laughing too, “So, SteelBreaker is your username?” Marco asked. Upon receiving confirmation Marco smiled and said, “Well I guess I’ll share my username with you. Its GreenEyesBoneDragon.”

D’vardir looked at Marco with a beaming smile as he praised, “A good name!” before continuing, “I really am sorry about earlier today, shit happens in the dungeon and it's not always easy to deal with it. I’d like to explain, if ye’ll give me a chance.” Marco cautiously nodded, afraid of setting off the drunken dwarf.

“Back when I was a tiny little bugger like yerself,” D’vardir started, “I managed to find meself some great friends to go dungeon crawling with.” A dopey smile spread across his face as he recalled, “We weren’t all that great, below average really… until we had a fortunate encounter.” He snorted, “At least we thought is was fortunate at the time.” Cringing he continued, “One of my friends managed to obtain a word of power. At first it was a godsend, helped us clear faster, helped us survive fights that we shouldn’t have been able to. So we grew complacent, we relied on the word to carry us…” As his voice trailed off tears gathered in his eyes.

“We didn’t want to see it,” he whimpered, “didn’t want to acknowledge what it was doing to her.” He looked Marco in the eyes, grabbing him by the shoulders before continuing, “Using one of those words changes a person. We saw it happening, we all knew something was wrong. But we did nothing to stop it. The word was too valuable, too precious to stop using for something so trifling.” His speech started shaking, the words forced out, “We didn’t care about her enough until it was too late. And when we confronted her…” He stopped to compose himself, continuing in a whisper, “When we confronted her we realized too late. She wasn’t herself anymore. It managed to kill almost all of us before we got it under control.”

Tightening his grip on Marco D’vardir said, “The reason I don’t want ye to use that word is because of what it’ll do to ye. Ye’ll lost sight of yerself Marco. Ye’ll become someone- something- else. And then ye’ll kill everyone ye hold dear. Don’t. Use. It.” After finishing his speech the dwarf let Marco go, stumbled over to the counter, and fell asleep against it. Marco stood in place for a few moments, contemplating what D’vardir had said. ‘What exactly are words of power?’ he asked himself as he began to climb the stairs, ‘Maybe it's best if I don’t know the answer.’